(ELIAS CLEANING HIS GRIEVES? I know he just ****** most of his friends but that scene…whew.) I’m truly baffled as to why this series doesn’t have the kind of buzz Grishaverse or SJM series do.īc I could not figure out the ‘read more’ block On the metro, in the library, eating…it didn’t matter. Again-the characters are good, but it was the pacing for me. The stakes are high and they stay high-not in a fatiguing way, but in a way that keeps the pages turning. These poor characters do not get a break (except for when they occasionally pause to have romantic dances and look longingly into one another’s eyes and almost kiss before quickly getting back to almost dying). What it holds back in as far as romance it more than makes up for in cruelty. And all while being a totally PG YA novel! And occasionally you get hit with teensy goodies like, “ Dawn is still a blue rumor on the horizon,” or “ his hands are slow and gentle as candle flame.” Tabir’s writing can be brutal, but it’s also really sensual. The cheesiness is the delicious kind, trickling through the story like some kind of delicious cheese fountain. I’ve been on a serious YA binge this year, but An Ember in The Ashes still felt like a palate cleanser. I bought into every character and conceit. Enemies to lovers and moral greyness for days.

He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined-and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itselfīutterflies and big, dumb boys. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier-and secretly, its most unwilling. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy.

An ember in the ashes cover